The girls disappeared with Alyssa for a while. Eventually, they came back without her. Paige said she just needed some time to herself. Then Shane and Logan disappeared. Logan came back shortly after. He secretly talked to Troy. I asked him what was going on. Logan told me they were taking Alyssa back to her apartment because she wanted to go and Leah couldn’t leave since she was in charge of the party. I wasn’t sure if I was just being paranoid or if something was wrong. After a bit, I took off. If she was leaving, there was no reason for me to be there. The guys looked as if they had things under control without me and I only seemed to upset her.
A little later as I’m lying in my bed wondering how things had gotten so screwed up, the guys come strolling in the apartment calling my name. Troy barges through my bedroom door and flips on the light.
“Damn it,” I yell covering my eyes with my arm.
“We need to talk to you,” he says not turning it off.
“I don’t need another lecture, Troy. I get it. I screwed up. I don’t deserve her. Blah, blah,” I mumble.
“No. Well, that’s all true, but it isn’t what we have to talk to you about,” Shane says when he comes in our room. He hands me a shot of something in a glass. “Here you might need this.” I just sit up and look at each of them.
“What happened?” I ask suddenly very anxious to know what they had to say. I cannot help but wonder if Alyssa found someone tonight. I’ve been afraid that might happen. If she took someone back to her room or if she went to someone else’s room…
“Calm down. We took care of it, but we want you to hear about it from us,” Logan says sitting on my desk chair. They took care of what?
“Did something happen to Alyssa?” The looks on their faces are starting to get me wound up.
“She’s okay. We just left her with Paige safely locked in her room,” Troy tells me. “Paige is staying with her tonight since Leah will still be awhile at the party.”
“One of you better tell me what the fuck happened,” I am raising my voice starting to freak out. They all look at Shane.
“Damn it. Why is it always me?” Shane whines. “Alright. The girls came back from the bathroom without Alyssa. She told them that she needed a minute to herself, like Paige said. They went back out dancing. When you saw us get up, Logan and I decided to go check on her. When we headed down the hallway, Ryan had her cornered by the girls’ bathroom.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I stand up, but Troy blocks me from leaving.
“Sit down and listen.” I drop back on my bed looking to Shane for the rest of the story.
“I heard him say something about getting her back to his room and her telling him it wasn’t happening. We stepped in and he, well,” Shane pauses running his hand through his hair.
“Shane,” I glower at him.
“He mistakenly thought because we were there and not you that she was somehow involved with us. He called her a whore,” he stops for a second as I held my breath. “He never put a hand on her from what we saw.”
“We roughed him up a little and maybe scared him. He apologized to Alyssa. We let him go. End of story,” Logan finishes for Shane.
“Son of a bitch,” I shout and jump off of the bed.
“We handled it Rocco. Relax for a second and think before you act. The most important thing is that Alyssa is safe and Ryan won’t bother her anymore,” Shane says trying to talk me out of what he knows I am about to do. “Text her, at least. Let her know you just want to see how she is.” He is trying to distract me, but I do it anyway. She says she’s fine. That’s all I get. I try to text again asking her to see me just for a second, but I didn’t get any response. I’m crushed.
I push by all three of them and take off out of the apartment. They are following me trying to get me to calm down, but none of them will let me go there alone. If it was one of their girls, they would be doing the same thing and I would be right behind them. It doesn’t take long to cross the parking lot to get to The Village. Ryan lives in one of the frat houses and I know he’ll be there. We barge through the door right into his suite. As soon as he sees me coming through the door, he jumps off the beer stained couch practically knocking over the bitch sitting next to him. His frat brothers all jump up.
“What the hell, Rocco?” Ryan starts to say as he’s backing up the closer I get to him. “I apologized to her. Why do you care? I heard she wasn’t even your girl anymore.”
“SHE WILL ALWAYS BE MY GIRL!” I scream right before punching him in the face. He falls over the pile of shit on the floor behind him. I grab him by the collar of his shirt and pick up his scrawny ass holding him midair. For so long, I’ve wanted to beat the shit out of this guy, but this is enough. Sunshine would not want me to do any more than this. A few of his frat brothers are trying to get to me, but the guys hold them back. “She will always be my girl, no matter what. If I ever hear you so much as glance in her direction, a black eye will be the least of your problems. Do you understand me?” I let him fall to the floor and turn around. “That goes for all of you,” I shout before walking out of the suite.
By the time we make it back to our building, I start to settle down. The guys want me to go grab something to eat with them at the diner. We aren’t really able to drive, so someone calls and has pizza delivered. Once it’s in the apartment, I realize I haven’t actually had much to eat lately and end up eating more pizza than usual. It’s getting late and the guys are starting to go to bed. While Shane is in the shower, I leave the apartment. It isn’t a good idea to go see her, but I have to see her to know she’s really okay. I knock on the door lightly in case she’s asleep. Leah opens the door still in her costume.
“What are you doing here?” she whispers.
“I just need to know she’s okay after what happened with Ryan,” I tell her.
“I don’t even know what happened,” Leah says. “She was already asleep when I got back.”
“Please, Leah. Just let me see her. I won’t wake her up,” I beg.
“What happened?” she asks not moving to let me in.
“Basically, he called her a whore. Shane and Logan took care of it then brought her back here. After I heard what happened, I went over, punched the son of a bitch in the face, and threatened him to never look at her again,” I explain and lean against the door frame.
“Well, I guess that buys you one minute. If you wake her up, she will kill me then I will kill you. Got it?” she threatens.
“Loud and clear,” I tell her.
“Be careful. Paige is on the floor in between our beds on the air mattress,” she warned.
Walking in their apartment brings back so many good memories of me and Sunshine. Tyler is at the kitchen table eating leftovers from the party. Erin and Mark are right inside of her room staring at me when I walk in. “What the hell is he doing in here?” Erin wants to know looking over to Leah who comes in and sits across from Tyler.
“He punched a guy for her. The least I can do is let him see her,” Leah explains to her.
“You punched Ryan?” she asked raising her eyebrows. I nod. “It’s about time,” she says closing her door.
“Good for you, man. That guy is a douche bag,” Tyler says with a mouth full of food.
I open Alyssa’s door as quietly as possible. The light from their bathroom is left on with the door slightly cracked like the girls usually do when one of them goes to bed before the other. I can see the air mattress on the floor, so I tiptoe around it and carefully sit on the edge of Alyssa’s bed. The light is just enough that I can see the details of her face. In the last few weeks, watching her sleep has become one of my favorite things to do. Her beauty is something that amazes me every time I look at her. Her light, freckled skin is so smooth I could run my fingers over it for hours. Her hair looks pretty when it’s straight, but there is something about her curls that suit her. She normally looks so peaceful when she sleeps. That isn’t the case this time. I can see she has been crying. She wasn’t sleep
ing for very long because her cheeks are still damp from the tears. I wipe her face with a tissue that she has next to her head and kiss her cheek where it’s wet. Before leaving, I whisper, “I’ll find a way to make this better. I promise. You’ll always be my girl, Sunshine.” Then I slip out as quietly as I came in.
I thank Leah on my way out of their apartment. She didn’t have to let me in. She could have slammed the door in my face. I would have.
“Hey, Rocco,” Leah calls from behind me as I am walking away. She is standing in their doorway looking at me.
“Yeah?” I ask trying not to get upset out here in the hallway.
“Alyssa’s hurting just as much as you are even though she’s trying to pretend like she’s not,” she tries to reassure me.
Shaking my head I say, “I doubt it. Knowing I’m the reason she’s hurting is pretty fucking painful.”
“Why did you do this if you are hurting so badly?” She is curious to know.
“I don’t have a choice. Vicki is certifiably crazy. She has nothing to fear. Her dad has a lot of power and money. He bails her ass out of every messed up thing she does. There is a restraining order against her to stay away from me here at school, but who knows if that is enough. I have no idea what she is capable of and if she hurt Alyssa in any way,” I say shaking my head. “I couldn’t live with myself. I know some people. I’m going to see if there is anything they can do. It’s not an option for me to live without her, but I’ve got to deal with this before trying to fix things with Alyssa.”
“Hurry up before there’s nothing left to fix,” is the last thing she says before going back in her apartment and closing the door.
Over the next few weeks, life was pretty boring. I tried to work with Alyssa in lab a few times, but she just sent me crawling to the back of the room. She would disappear after class, so I couldn’t even walk with her. My texts were never returned. One day I saw her coming out of the laundry room. Offering to carry the basket of clothes for her didn’t even get me a response. It was obvious she was in pain, but she didn’t seem to care that I was suffering, too.
Leah would never tell me anything more after the night of the Halloween party. Sometimes Paige would throw me a bone. She told me Alyssa pretty much stayed in her apartment, mostly her room, only leaving to go to class. She wouldn’t say anything to her friends about me and if someone mentioned my name she’d leave the room. Paige stayed with her and Leah a few nights to watch movies or whatever else girls do, but Alyssa refused to go out. The first two weekends of November, Alyssa went home. Paige thought at least one of the weekends she had stuff to do for the wedding that was coming up very quickly, but she wasn’t sure why she went home the other one. The third weekend Leah took both Alyssa and Paige home to her house since she had to babysit her brother again. At least I knew she wasn’t out with other guys while she was here at school. Someone would have told me. Knowing she went home to do anything connected with her ex-boyfriend worried me. Alyssa didn’t want him anywhere near her and no one would be there to help keep him away. Unless of course, she changed her mind.
Tony was working on trying to find out where Vicki was for me, but to no avail. Her parents had her hidden pretty well. He even went as far as trying to prove she violated her restraining order by calling me. Nothing could be done because she called from an untraceable phone. I’m sure no one really put much effort into this since she didn’t actually hurt anyone. My mom recently hired a private investigator to see what he could find out, but that could take a while. It was devastating to my mom knowing that she encouraged me to date this girl who is now ruining my life. She wouldn’t believe me when I tried to tell her that it wasn’t her fault.
Now there is only one week left until the wedding and I know nothing more than I did a month ago. My drinking has been getting worse over the last few days and my roommates are getting sick of it. The guys are just walking in the apartment and I’m sitting on the couch flipping my phone over and over on the table next to me. Shane grabs it away from me and puts it in his pocket.
“Give me my phone, Shane,” I mutter holding my hand out.
“No. We’re going out. Come on,” he says.
“You don’t want my miserable ass going anywhere with you, so just give me my phone and go ahead without me.”
“If she hasn’t called or texted you in the last month, she’s not going to call or text you in the next few hours.” That hurt. “You have five minutes to clean yourself up or you are going like that,” he declares.
“Where are we going?” I ask not moving.
“Grabbing something to eat, then we are going to the movies. Leah is going, so you know what will happen to you if you aren’t ready on time,” he tells me cleaning up the beer bottles I left all over the table.
“Leah’s going?” I jump up.
“Alyssa is not going, so don’t get excited. Leah, Tyler, Erin, Mark, Julia, and Tommy are all going with us. Paige said she tried to get Alyssa to come out, too, but she said no without any other explanation,” he clarifies. I don’t like that she will be in the building without any of us around. That is even more of a reason for me to be here, even if it’s just in case she needs anything. “Whatever you are thinking, forget it. Let’s go. You can come into the land of the living for a few hours.”
The girls did not seem thrilled that I am going out with them tonight. It is clearly because of me that their friend is not herself, so I’m not their favorite person at the moment. Paige is always sociable with me. That is most likely because of Troy and nothing really to do with me. “Don’t let Julia get to you,” Paige whispers after about the fifth remark from her about Alyssa being home alone. I just shake it off. Julia’s right. Most of the time the girls didn’t even acknowledge me being there which is fine.
Shane won’t hand over my phone and it is getting really irritating. He keeps saying he’ll give it back to me after the movie. Throughout the whole damn thing, I could only wonder if Alyssa’s okay. Wonder what she is doing. Wonder if she is thinking about me the way I am thinking of her. Wonder if Tony or the private investigator is trying to get ahold of me because they found out anything new. Just as I am about to jump over the seat and rip my phone out of Shane’s pocket, the movie ends. We all walk outside and I hold my hand out for it. He’s shaking his head at me.
“It’s snowing!” one of the girls screams from ahead of me as we are walking outside.
“Hey, Rocco,” I hear someone call from behind me. When I turn around Carla and Tony are also walking out of the theater. Guess my mom was right about them.
“Hey. What’s up?” I greet them.
“How are you holding up?” Tony asks me.
“Not so great. Have you heard anything?” I question him.
“Sorry, man. Nothing.” I can tell he feels bad. “I really wish there was something else I could do.”
“I know. It’s cool,” I say defeated.
“Rocco, I’m really sorry I didn’t know about you and Alyssa before I called her today,” Carla says. I knew that Alyssa had given Carla her number in case she ever needed help with the kids. Why would she call Alyssa, though? She must notice that I’m unsure what she is talking about. “My babysitter canceled on me at the last minute tonight. The kids wanted me to call you to see if you were free, but I didn’t get an answer.”
I glare at Shane who pulls my phone out of his pocket and hands it back to me. “That was my fault. I’m sorry,” Shane says. When I look at my phone, I see the missed call.
“It’s fine. I was just going to cancel, but then gave Alyssa’s phone a try to see if maybe you guys were together. She was at the mall a few minutes from my house and said she didn’t mind watching them. I tried to tell her it was no big deal for me to reschedule, but she insisted,” Carla tells me.
“Alyssa went to the mall by herself?” I looked at Leah and the girls.
Leah says, “I don’t control everything she does, Rocco. If the girl says she wants to go out by herself
, I can’t physically stop her.”
“Since when?” I almost yell. “You always tell her what to do and what not to do.”
“She’s been a little unreasonable lately. I’m sure you can figure out why,” she remarks. I sigh. Of course, this would be my fault one way or another. I run my hand through my hair. Leah leaves with the rest of them. It’s just my roommates and Paige left standing there with Carla and Tony.
“I’m sorry, Rocco. I didn’t mean to cause a problem.” Carla looks upset.
“Alyssa babysitting for you is not a problem at all, Carla. She’s actually more capable of taking care of your twins than I am. I’m just upset she went to the mall by herself. There are a lot of crazy people over there,” I explain.
Carla chuckles. “That’s what I told her.”
It occurs to me that it’s snowing. “Shit. Are you guys heading back to your house now?” I ask Carla.
“Yeah, why?” Tony wants to know.
“Alyssa doesn’t like to drive in the snow or at night. Shane, can you take me over there? I’ll drive Alyssa back in her car,” I say.
“Do you think she will agree to that?” Logan asks.
“She won’t have a choice. I won’t have a ride back,” I smirk at him. “But seriously. She doesn’t like driving in this shit. I doubt she will give me too much of a hard time.”
“Ride with us,” Tony offers. “I want to talk to you anyway.”
“Is that alright with you?” I ask Carla.
“Of course. When Tony is done talking to you, I have some things to say to you myself. You might wish you walked by the time I’m finished, though,” she says putting her hands on her hips. It seems like something a mom would do to her kids. I almost laugh, but stop myself before she kicks my ass.
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